


A Winter's Night

by goldenzingy46



Series: Serial Killers [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Creepy, Gen, Horror, London Overground - Freeform, Pre-Slash, Serial Killers, Well. Not really but it's certainly, What's new with me?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28860702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenzingy46/pseuds/goldenzingy46
Summary: Tom tilts his head. “Have you ever told a stranger a secret, just to see how they’ll take it?”His eyes are heavy, and if his gaze was scrutinizing before, it is now piercing, sharp and uncaring—but no. It’s not uncaring at all, really, it’s the sort that devours you up and desperately wants you to smile and accept, which is an odd trait in a man who looks like he couldn’t care less.Harry Potter misses his train, and the dark-headed stranger might make him regret that (for a while, at least).
Series: Serial Killers [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719148
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38





	A Winter's Night

There’s something sharp about winter air.

Harry has been waiting nearly an hour at Victoria Station, because it’s late at night and he missed the last train home. Nobody else is up, and the undrunk coffee in his hand has long gone cold – there’s something too still about tonight.

It is winter, and late, so he shouldn’t be surprised to see the station so empty, but all the same, Harry is worried. Fearful. Terrified, even. There is something wrong with tonight.

(And _oh_ , doesn’t Harry wish he’d caught the last train home. He was so close to avoiding the debacle that follows.)

The train pulls into the station, not loud but not quiet enough to prevent Harry from startling. He presses the button by the first carriage and steps in through the open doors; he has yet to notice the fact that he is not alone.

Why fear being alone when you could fear something worse?

( _Why fear being alone when you could fear that someone – something – is there and you simply haven’t noticed? Won’t notice, until it’s too late?)_

The train pulls out of the station, and Harry sighs. He has a long ride home.

The doors in between compartments opens, and a tall man in a long, dark coat steps through, expensive shoes clicking across the floor. His eyes sweep the almost empty carriage, resting on Harry, the sole occupant of the train.

Harry holds his breath, and the steps come closer.

(He’s never been gladder for the newspapers that lie on the seats, for the way he can pretend he’s not tense, waiting for the inevitable.)

The man sits opposite him, studying the way he pretends to read the newspaper, judging him for the stone-cold coffee he still carries without any intention of drinking it. He feels like specimen under a lens in a lab, every bone and strand of hair being noted, documented, filed away for further usage.

And then the man holds out a gloved hand, saying, “Tom Riddle. Pleasure to meet you.”

Harry finds himself shaking the hand, leather curiously soft under his fingertips. “Harry Potter,” he says.

Tom smiles. “We look alike, you know,” and then Harry can’t stop wanting to shut him up, to get rid of him, to be alone in the carriage once again. To be able to breathe properly without being scrutinized under Riddle’s icy gaze.

“Thank you,” he says, because he is aware that Tom is handsome, how could he not be? To be compared to him is a compliment, and Harry will treat it as such.

Tom tilts his head. “Have you ever told a stranger a secret, just to see how they’ll take it?”

His eyes are heavy, and if his gaze was scrutinizing before, it is now piercing, sharp and uncaring—but no. It’s not uncaring at all, really, it’s the sort that devours you up and desperately wants you to smile and accept, which is an odd trait in a man who looks like he couldn’t care less.

“No.” Harry responds, short and clipped and somehow holding on to that hope that Tom will get up and simply _go away_.

He does not, but suddenly he is right up against him, the seat beside him, cool breath ghosting right up against his ear.

“Well, I’m about to tell you mine,” Tom murmurs, and Harry is frozen, paralysed—

Tom withdraws, rocking on his heels to rest his back against the wall. “Have you ever been so—” he pauses, nails scraping at his own skin, before he realises what he is doing and retracts his hand. “Have you ever itched for something more?”

Harry shakes his head, mutely.

“The universe bends to my will, sometimes, you know.” Tom is too wrapped up in himself to notice Harry peering out the window, checking for when the next station appears.

He doesn’t continue, and Harry turns his head back towards him to find that Tom is staring at him intently, watching him.

(And perhaps it’s a flaw of Harry’s, the curiosity, the desire to find the biggest spot of trouble and stick his nose it in, but it is what it is.)

“How do you do it, Tom?” Harry whispers, and Tom grins, a shark grin, with too many teeth and not enough life.

He is almost maniacal, and his earlier calculated movements are gone as he seizes Harry’s wrists and whispers, delighted, “I kill them.”

And against every piece of better judgement, Harry looks into that dissecting gaze and asks, “Who?”

And then his wrists are free, and Tom is standing coat flaring around him as the train draws to a halt.

“ _Anyone!”_ Tom laughs, and steps through the open doors, striding away, across the platform, and Harry watches him until he can no longer see him, and the train is moving, and Harry is carried away from the strange enigma of a man.

Harry takes a sip of his coffee, and it is cold.

A scrap of paper sits in his lap, and he reads the single line of scrawled blue ink.

He gets off at the next station and calls a taxi, reading the address of a madman, a killer, and closing his eyes as they begin to move.

(Maybe it’s not the smartest thing he’s ever done, but in every life, every world, Harry Potter will find the danger and hunt it until it is no longer a threat.)

  


**Author's Note:**

> You could... poke your head into my [Discord server](https://discord.gg/37bXdGW)? I don't bite (much)!
> 
> Alternately, you could pop into my mess of a Tumblr [here](https://goldenzingy46.tumblr.com/), or my writing Tumblr [here](https://goldenzingy46butwriteblr.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Comments and kudos sustain me :)
> 
> [for bribe related reasons, i ask you to go and have a look at user [alfisha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alfisha)'s fics, and they are a damn good writer]


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